


Half-Awake In a Fake Empire

by orphan_account



Category: Jonas Brothers
Genre: Doppelganger, Incest, M/M, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-06-11
Updated: 2010-06-11
Packaged: 2017-10-10 01:32:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,945
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/93755
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This <i>was</i> his brother, even though much of the staff had seen Joe Jonas, and he looked almost nothing like the spiky-haired teenager that was currently poking at Nick's hotel bed to see how bouncy the springs were.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Half-Awake In a Fake Empire

**Author's Note:**

> ashavahishta posted a a jailbait!Joe and now!Nick picspam and unwittingly put up a huge neon sign that said GIN, COME BE PERVERTED HERE. Because it's all the things I love. (Potentially) time travel! Doppelganger! And it's a size kink! IT MAKES ME HAPPY, OKAY. Anyway, she said she wanted some commentfic, and I asked for a scenario, and then I wrote it. This has almost no redeeming value! SORRY. (Title from The National. Hey, it works.)

After the front desk called at half past eleven and yanked Nick out of sound, much needed sleep, and hotel security brought a terrified, skinny and harmless-looking sixteen year old to Nick's door, all he could do was stare.

He wondered if he was still passed out in front of late night programming. It happened every night; asleep in front of the TV by ten, then waking up around four to infomercials for products he'd never heard of in accents that made him feel a little like he'd crawled down the rabbit hole. And it wouldn't be the first time his brain played tricks on him. Sometimes Nick had dreams that lived out a whole day, every mundane moment, even the lulls when he had to wait for an elevator, or for a red light to change.

This wasn't exactly mundane.

Joe had been found wandering in the lobby, near hysterics, and the staff managed to gather from his panicked ramblings that he was Joe Jonas, or claimed to be, and someone eventually had the bright idea to call Nick before Joe imploded. They were suspicious, one guy keeping a warning hand on Joe's shoulder, and Nick had to dumbly inform them that yes, this _was_ his brother, even though much of the staff had seen Joe Jonas, and he looked almost nothing like the spiky-haired teenager that was currently poking at Nick's hotel bed to see how bouncy the springs were.

"You're sure you're okay?" Nick asked. "You're not hurt or anything?"

"I'm okay," Joe said, but he wouldn't look at Nick.

He'd backed himself into a corner once Nick had let him in, wide-eyed and unsure. Nick tried to stutter reassurances, but none of them really helped. Eventually something in Joe shifted and he started acting a little bit more like the resilient teenager he'd been. It was mostly bravado, and Nick was pretty sure both of them were convinced they were dreaming the weirdest dream in the history of time.

"You're supposed to be in Africa right now," Nick said slowly, watching Joe fiddle with the edge of Nick's pillowcase. "And you're supposed to be twenty."

Joe stayed silent. The line of his back was even _more_ tense than before, if that was possible. "I know, it's crazy, right?" He shrugged jerkily and shoved a hand into his pocket.

Nick shook his head, wondering. He ran a hand through his hair, pulling curls momentarily straight with his fingertips. It tugged at his skull, a too-real sensation that meant he couldn't just call it a dream and stop freaking out. He blew out a breath and backed himself into a chair, giving Joe as much space as possible. "Hey," he said. Countless reassuring words built up in his throat, all of them painfully awkward. "I don't know what's going on either, man. It's cool to be," he bit the side of his lip, nearly wincing at how hollow and lame he sounded, "you know. Freaked out."

"I'm not freaked out," Joe said in the world's least convincing voice. "I'm just, whatever."

God. Nick desperately wished Kevin was there, or Joe, actual Joe, because they'd always been better with kids. Joe might have been legally old enough to drive at sixteen, but he still watched cartoons and acted like a four year old if you gave him sugar.

Kevin would get him to laugh and get him to talk about it, and Joe would make it seem like the best thing _ever_. Nick was the least qualified person to handle something like this. Well -- his mom and dad, they were out, because his mom wouldn't be able to stay calm, and Joe needed calm above all else, even if it was like pulling teeth for Nick to give it to him.

"How old am I where you come from?" Nick asked. He knew perfectly well how old he was, but he had to say _something_. "Am I like twelve?"

Joe shook his head. "Dude, you're thirteen."

"Weird." Actually, it was. Joe the sixteen year old was standing there in front of him being sixteen, and somewhere Nick was still -- Nick was still trying to keep his voice from cracking around every other note. "I'm seventeen now."

"I know." Joe gave up on the pillowcase and moved on to the bedside table. He started flicking the lamp on and off. "I did the math. I'm twenty, you're seventeen."

"Technically," Nick said, letting the dawning amusement of it shape his tone and his mouth into something like a smile, "I'm older than you, dude."

Joe snorted, but his hand stalled on the light switch. "Whatever. In your dreams."

"Maybe. But if this is real, and you're sixteen, I'm totally the older brother." Joe shook his head. "What, you don't have anything to say about that?"

Flick, flick. The light was like a strobe, and Nick was glad he'd turned the overhead on so it wasn't dramatic and headache-inducing.

Joe's continued silence was uncharacteristic, but it was an in Nick didn't previously have, so he worked it. "I can pull out the couch for you to sleep on."

"I'm not tired," Joe said immediately.

"It's almost midnight. You should really get some sleep."

_That_ got Joe to turn around. Seeing his face again was a shock; his eyebrows were groomed like they hadn't been since Joe decided he didn't give a shit, his eyes seemed bigger without his glasses, and his stupid hair framed a sour expression that on twenty year old Joe would look pissed, but on the sixteen year old version just looked petulant. His skin was smooth, not a hint of stubble; he'd be hard pressed to grow any. Nick fought a smile. "You're kidding."

"Nope. Come on, I'll show you how to pull it out." Nick stood up, watching Joe watch him, trying to see if he noticed the height difference between them. The awareness of how small Joe was now compared to Nick made his skin buzz, and he had to fight a pathetic impulse to show off.

"I'm not _five_. And you're only--" he gestured at Nick "– a year older than me. Big deal."

"So you don't want to go to bed." Nick shrugged. "Do what you want to do. I've got rehearsal in the morning, it'd be nice if you didn't keep me up."

Joe's eyebrows rose. "Rehearsal? I thought you said I was in Africa."

"You are." He stretched, arms going above his head, joints cracking. "It's not the band."

Joe's expression shuttered, his lips thinning. "You aren't... What happened to the band?"

Nick felt like a jerk once he recognized Joe's fright for what it was. He felt all of the posturing slip from his body like air out of a balloon, wanting to banish that ugly uncertainty and make sure it never had a chance to come back. "The band is fine. We're doing fine. About to tour, actually."

"Oh." Joe was trying very hard to hide his relief. He nodded to himself and looked around at the room like it had something new and exciting to show him.

"This is something else. I'm doing Les Mis."

"Whoa. That's... that's cool."

They stood there staring at each other for a moment; Joe was finally the one to break it, darting awkward glances to the ground. Nick sighed. "Let's worry about this in the morning, okay? We could both use some sleep."

Joe found the spare set of sheets tucked away in the closet and helped him set up the couch. Nick gave him a pair of sweats to sleep in and a spare shirt. They didn't say much to each other; Nick was still exhausted, and his brain couldn't fully process the image of Joe crawling onto the convertible bed as Nick's sweats threatened to fall off of his hips.

He made sure Joe was settled and switched off the light. It felt like Joe was looking at him, but it was nearly pitch dark in the living room, and neither of them could see.

"Night."

–

He couldn't sleep. He eyes were literally watering he was so tired, and every other breath led into a yawn, but he couldn't drop off. Every noise -- the muffled sound of a door closing from a suite down the hall -- made his body tense, head coming off the pillow to listen for Joe's footsteps.

Eventually they came. Nick debated pretending to be asleep, but the idea of leaving Joe to deal with something this huge by himself made his stomach pang.

The door to his bedroom creaked open, and Joe's silhouette filled the threshold. "Nick?"

He sat up and turned on the light, blinking at the sudden change. Joe looked so _real_, not hazed by memory or the flat two-dimensionality of pictures he saw every now and then from a few years back. He was so somber, Nick's too-big shirt slipping down his collarbone, his eyebrows drawn together.

"Hey."

"I can't sleep."

"Me either." Nick looked around, at a loss. "You want to watch TV or something?"

"No."

"You want to talk about it?"

Joe came into the room a little, and he actually smiled at Nick, brief as it was. "Heck no."

Joe stopped caring about gosh and heck and every other minor transgression right around when he turned eighteen, unless their mom or a reporter was in earshot. He said fuck, too, from time to time, but he couldn't quite carry it off. He always seemed apologetic, checking everyone's faces to make sure no one was offended. "I've got my guitar," he offered. "I can teach you some chords." Joe was still in the process of learning right around then, but most of his attempts involved strumming nothing in particular until his fingers hurt. Kevin had to dangle teaching him Hey Jude like a carrot until Joe sat down and applied himself.

"Where is it?"

Nick pointed at his case, standing against the wall across the room. Joe went and got it, carrying it over with a reticence born of breaking things almost just by looking at them. Even at twenty, he had bull in a china shop moments.

Nick took the case and unsnapped it, pulling out his guitar and grabbing his backup pick. Joe stood in front of the bed, uncertain, until Nick gestured to the spot on the bed next to him.

\--

Apparently the lure of hearing songs technically from the future was too much for Joe to keep quiet. Within fifteen minutes he was smiling, chewing his bottom lip, making Nick go over Poison Ivy until he had the lyrics down, and five minutes after that he was grabbing for the guitar and trying to play it for himself.

He kept dropping notes, staring over and over from the same place, and Nick could only watch that for so long before his teeth started grinding together.

"No, you've got--" He gently cupped Joe's wrist until it turned the way it was supposed to. "Try again."

Joe did. He was staring to get impatient and sloppy with it; Nick watched as his face slowly changed from excitement to frustration. "Dang," he muttered, shaking out his wrist and fingers so hard Nick heard a crack. "Can you show me again?"

"I don't think that's going to help," Nick said, considering. "Why don't you," he started rearranging himself on the bed, moving behind Joe. It was mostly his posture that was screwing him up, the cumbersome way he held the guitar, and Nick knew that being watched didn't help. "Sit in front of me, like this."

Joe squirmed his way back, settling between Nick's legs, and Nick slipped his arms around Joe's body to grasp the guitar for himself. "You feel that? Keep your posture straight, or your grip will change."

It was better that time. Joe's head tilted down, staring at the strings and his clumsy fingers, and strands of his hair brushed against Nick's cheek. It smelled like -- Nick hadn't remembered that Joe used to smell like that.

Joe started moving, drawing his legs up to sit Indian-style, knee knocking into Nick's thigh. Nick tapped it, admonishing. "Nope. You'll lean."

"This is _hard_," Joe complained, but he was laughing. He rolled his shoulders, so close Nick's chest pressed into him, and it was right around then that Nick realized that Joe was practically in his lap and that was... problematic.

A lot of his early teenage years blurred together; the excitement of turning into something, of writing songs and learning how to play them, and then the tours, one city indistinguishable from another. The thing that stood out in stark relief was Joe. How he was always there, and how his bouncing around the house and thrashing around in the backseat of the car kept Nick laughing, kept his energy up when it started to falter. How he watched everything Nick ate like a hawk and pressed worrying hands to his face, his arms. He was so solid. And Nick was so in love with him he made himself sick.

He hadn't known what it was until Joe started dating – though it could hardly be called dating; it was more like giggling phone calls and hand-holding. He was so used to Joe's attention being focused on him, even when Joe's attention couldn't seem to stick to anything else. His mom practically had to strap him to the kitchen table to get him to do his homework, but if Nick wanted to spend three hours writing lyrics, Joe would sit there with him. He smiled and nodded and tapped out beats on his shins, coming up with stupid rhyming words that somehow managed to work themselves into the song.

Nick wanted to play Super Mario, and when he found Joe, he was out the door, going on some lame _date_ pool party thing. He was so happy all Nick could do was stand there, face blank, stomach churning. He wanted to punch Mandy the next time he saw her, and he skulked off to his room and wrote angry songs until it felt a little bit better, but the feeling never really went away.

Now Joe dated and Nick sucked it up. He wondered if it was the same for Joe when he was with someone, but Joe was forever encouraging and happy and proud, even as Kevin rolled his eyes and called Nick melodramatic when he obsessively checked his phone just in case Miley had sent him another text. He thought about asking, seeing if it was normal, if it was just him, but it _wasn't_ normal because all he felt for Danielle was quiet love, like she'd always been in the family. The idea of loving Camilla or Taylor or even Demi like that made his skin crawl.

And Joe was there, pressed up against him, so small and un-intimidating compared to Nick's memory of his older brother. _Nick_ was older, Nick was bigger, and Nick, he realized with a jolt, had more than a vague and blushing knowledge of girls.

Now, Nick wouldn't be able to bracket Joe with his thighs and show them the chords to Poison Ivy; Joe would laugh him off.

"How am I doing?" Joe asked earnestly. He'd been playing for a while and Nick had been silent the entire time.

"You're doing great. Run through the bridge one more time."

He could teach Joe A Little Bit Longer, and it would be brand-new to him. They could stay up all night like this, Nick seeing old and tired material through Joe's fresh eyes.

Or he could take advantage of something that was at least a dream and at most a bizarre fortuity, something that shouldn't have happened at all. This Joe, it wasn't his Joe, not anymore, and he was going to go back to wherever he came from because that was how things worked, and if he didn't, God had a screwed up sense of humor.

"Do you want me to show you something else?" Nick asked, surprised at the way his voice came out soft and strangled at the same time.

Nick's shirt was still slipping off of Joe's shoulder, the bony blade of it standing out from tan skin, almost no hint of muscle. When Joe nodded, it rocked his whole body, tiny points of contact against Nick that he shouldn't have been able to feel, but he did. Nick fought a shiver.

It felt not a little stupid to start singing to the back of Joe's head, but he pushed his chest flush against Joe's back, his breath huffing in his ear, the side of his neck. That close, Joe smelled less like hair product and more like skin, lingering cologne he'd started to wear. No aftershave, yet.

He made it all the way to the second chorus of Turn Right, Joe relaxed in his arms, seemingly unaware that this wasn't drawing outside the lines of _them_, before he trailed off and put his open mouth to Joe's skin.

Those noise Joe made was surprised. Nick could have pulled away and played it off like it was an accident, but _Joe_ hadn't pulled away, and he was wound up enough to push his luck. The very point of his tongue flickered out, a flash of a wet little lick, and he opened his mouth more, dick swelling in his pants at the second sound he managed to pull from Joe's throat.

"Nick?" Joe asked, voice wobbly.

Nick squeezed his eyes shut and sucked. A discordant sound came from the guitar, and then Joe dropped it to the carpet, but Nick didn't even _care_. He sucked harder, grazing his teeth against the tendon of Joe's neck. His arms instinctively wanted to curl around Joe and hold him in place, but he wasn't – he wasn't going to do that. He wasn't that far gone. "Does it feel good?" he asked, dipping his head to kiss further back, creeping to the collar of the shirt.

Joe choked on some kind of reply, and Nick consideringly scraped his teeth again, nearly a bite. "Nick--"

"No one's done this to you yet, have they?"

Joe'd shown off his first real hickey as soon as he got home, pulling his shirt away from his neck in a grand display. If Nick remembered correctly, he was almost due for it, but not yet. A few more months, maybe. Nick's first was when he was fifteen, but they'd been sparse after, while Joe had more than made up for lost time.

"No."

This time it was a real bite, sinking into the juncture of shoulder and neck, worrying the skin into red marks in the shape of his teeth. Joe bucked; Nick let go, ready for him to tear away.

He didn't.

Emboldened, dizzy with it, Nick twisted a hand in the fabric of Joe's shirt. He pulled it up to slide his fingers underneath. Joe's stomach twitched, Nick's fingers resting lightly above his bellybutton. He was skinny but soft, no resistance when he dug his fingers in. "I can stop," he said, right against the surprisingly cold shell of Joe's ear. "If you want me to."

It was a nasty trick, but he said it right as he lifted the band of Joe's Nick's sweatpants, tugging at the thin line of hair there. The edge of his palm brushed against the head of Joe's dick, already sticky.

"Do you like it?" he asked, when there was no protest, no response at all.

"I... Nick?"

He waited for anything else, rubbing his hand at the crease of Joe's thigh, feeling the heat of him. "You want me to jerk you off?" He hadn't meant to, but just saying it aloud made Nick's hips rock forward, settling the line of his hard-on against Joe's back, right above his ass.

"_Nick_." Joe's back arched, shoving them together even harder. It was as much of an invitation as Nick was probably going to get, so he took it.

His hand felt huge around Joe, though he wasn't small, and realistically he couldn't be that much bigger now than he was at sixteen. Joe was fully hard, wet running down from the head in a way that Nick hadn't ever imagined. He coaxed more out of him when he tightened his fist, trying to see what Joe liked. His hand was cramped, trapped in the sweatpants, so he kept it close to Joe's body, thumb bumping Joe's stomach as he jacked him.

Joe started making noises, panting and bitten off moans, so many it was like they were all trying to come out at once. Nick kissed the side of his cheek, Joe's skin burning hot there, and leaned forward until he could stare down Joe's body at the movement of what was going on under the veil of clothing.

Seeing it was a sharp punch to the stomach, and Nick started moving his hips in earnest. It looked so filthy, the thing he was doing to his brother that he had to keep hidden even as he was doing it. It got him that much closer to coming, but he wanted to _see_; he wanted to see his hand working Joe over, see the way his precome slicked the circle of Nick's fist, to find out if Joe's dick flushed dark like his did.

He managed to work Joe's sweatpants off with his other hand, pulling them down one hip and then the other, yanking until they were caught at the tops of his thighs and all Nick could see was bare skin.

"You like it, don't you, baby?" His mouth fumbled around the word; it was so alien, another thing he never would have imagined, but Joe sucked in a huge gulp of air and shuddered, so it was worth the way mortification heated up his neck and prickled his scalp. "Am I gonna make you come?"

"Y-yeah."

"I'm gonna come too." He dragged his lips across Joe's cheek just for the sensation. His hand flexed, trying for another grip, and air hissed from between Joe's teeth. "Just like this."

It was a slow grind, nothing like the usual way he got himself off, but he hadn't touched a person like this ever, hadn't had his cock rubbing tight against someone else. Not against Joe, who made him feel this deep ache that got better with every roll of his hips.

Nick felt him coming before he heard it, felt him pull taught like a wire, and then the spurts that caught his wrist and Joe's stomach. He already knew what it sounded like when Joe came, or at least the hushed version of it from sharing rooms on tour. What he didn't know was that Joe only made noise when it was almost over, groaning and hitching gasps through Nick's name, over and over again.

Nick's hips snapped once, twice, and then he was gone, come filling his pajama pants and seeping wet through them. The last wave of it was so strong it caught him by surprise, forcing the loudest sound he'd made from him.

"God," he said, feeling dazed from the smell of Joe and the dirty, stick mess he'd made in his clothes, something he'd have to hide until he got home, jammed down at the bottom of his suitcase. He didn't want to throw them out. "God, Joe."

Not caring about the come all over his hand, he pulled Joe into a tight hug, resting his face against his shoulder, trying to steady his breathing. He felt odd, but he didn't feel guilty, or at least not yet. He was still too wrapped up in the satisfaction of what had happened, how hard he'd gotten his big brother off. In Nick's grip he _wasn't_ a big brother, he was this _kid_ that Nick could most likely pick up and throw around.

"You're so skinny," he said, unthinking. He pulled back, mouth dry from essentially breathing the cotton of Joe's shirt. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah." His voice was small.

"We should get you cleaned up."

He knew he had to, but he was reticent to let Joe go. His arms felt numb when he dropped them back down to the bed. Joe didn't move away; he kept leaning on Nick, and Nick couldn't help the last kiss he gave to Joe's shoulder.

"Come on, let's get up."

Nick had been sitting in the same position for a long time, and his legs protested when he untangled himself from around Joe and got up unsteadily. He grimaced at the feeling of come inside his pants.

A furtive look at Joe's face didn't tell him much. His was still flushed, and he seemed okay with looking at Nick, but it was possible he was still shell-shocked. Nick tried to ignore the guilt that closed his throat and made his heartbeat a condemning drum.

"Come on," he said again, and Joe pushed himself off the bed, pulling up his pants, careful not to trip on Nick's guitar.

He followed Nick into the bathroom, eyes sleepy under the bathroom lights that Nick kept dim. He watched Nick wash his hands, watched him grab a washcloth and wet it, testing the water to make sure it was still warm enough.

"Here," he said, uneasily holding it out as it dripped water onto the floor.

Joe hesitantly stretched out an arm to take it, but his eyes were on Nick's pants, narrowing in scrutiny. "Did you really..."

Nick quickly turned back to the sink. He thought he'd have burned out all of his shame with what he'd done, but as it turned out, not really. "Yeah." He darted a look at Joe in the mirror. "I'm sorry."

"No, it's--" Joe said it in a rush, but then stopped abruptly, leaving whatever it would have been hanging in the air between them.

He didn't look up again to see if Joe was cleaning off. He contemplated brushing his teeth, but that seemed too normal.

When Joe spoke again, it startled him. "Do you do this with," he hesitated, "you know. The... me?"

"No." He had to grit it out.

"Oh." There was a pause. "Why not?"

He said it so simply, like it was a reasonable question, and like Nick could have anything but the obvious reaction to it. Nick nearly laughed in disbelief. "Why because it's a bad idea to make someone do what they don't want to do." He bowed his head and cursed and stared at the basin of the sink, hands white-knuckled fists.

Joe, somewhat shakily, laughed at him. "Dude, were you paying attention?"

"What?"

"I mean, I didn't exactly run from the room screaming."

Nick turned around again, hoping he didn't have an incredibly stupid look on his face. "It's still not--"

Joe went from looking like an impossibly young teenager to the occasionally incredibly irritating smart-ass who thought he knew everything. The one who convinced Nick to break curfew and to jump on furniture and foxed his way out of punishment. He raised an eyebrow and crossed his arms over his chest, cocky, overcompensating like hell. "You seriously think I'm, like, incapable of saying no to you?" Nick stared at him, stunned. Joe smiled a little. "You're not the Hulk, man. I could have gotten away."

"So you're telling me that you're..." His brain literally couldn't finish the thought.

Joe shrugged. "Yeah, whatever." He swallowed and looked away, blowing his veneer of nonchalance. "Let's just go to bed, before you start freaking out." Joe brought his gaze back to Nick, assessing. "You should probably change your pants."

–

Joe didn't go back to his bed on the couch. He took Nick's pillow and wound himself around it like an octopus, mumbling something about the light, while Nick hurriedly changed and tried to figure out exactly what was going on. He watched Joe, stupefied, and he was fairly sure Joe was pretending to be way more tired than he was, but he wasn't about to call him on it.

He found himself going over to his phone, turning it in his hands before switching it on. He didn't know what he was going to do with it; he didn't know what time it was in Africa, and the idea of calling Joe in the first place was not a comfortable one. If he was going to send a text, what could he possibly _say_? Your sixteen year old self showed up, someone call the government, and I might be dreaming anyway, so just ignore this in the morning?

He felt like he had to _do_ something, though, so he texted Joe with _Still no lions?_ and made to turn his phone off again, but he followed it up with _Love you, bro_ before he could talk himself out of it. It was whatever it was. He was going to crawl into bed and try and sleep next to Joe and what he'd done and hope that everything worked itself out once he woke up.

When he got into bed, Joe hummed and turned toward him, nearly touching him but not quite. It was dark, but Nick could see that his eyes were closed, and his breathing was even. His hair had wilted, or something, gone lax even with all the gel. His face was open, boyish, happy in a way that let Nick breathe easier.

Nick pulled the blankets up around them, fingers accidentally skidding against Joe's arm. Joe opened one eye and grinned lazily.

"Night, Nick."

–

He woke up, and Joe was gone.

–

_no lions!!!!!!!! ive been lied to_

_love u more_

-

END.


End file.
